While traveling around the country Gandhiji once went to Orissa state.
Could its
poverty be described in words? Our country - India, is one of the poor countries
in the world and Orissa is the poorest of all the states in India. There are no
living people, rather there are skeletons only. The famines won't spare them.
People hardly get to eat both the times. Why to talk about clothing in such a
condition?
Gandhiji
had heard about those conditions but now he saw it for himself.
Gandhiji
visited the villages of that poor state. Some of the villages were deserted. The
huts were shattered. The people in some of those huts were hungry, thirsty and
pale. The women had barely covered their bodies with rags. Even they were not
sufficient. They had barely enough rags to wrap around their waists but nothing
to cover the upper part.
This
scene broke him down with sorrow. Oh God! Such extreme poverty in my country?
Can't I do anything to abolish it?
He
thought this was what is called poverty!
Gandhiji
had very soft feelings for Orissa compared to other states.